Little Favors
by Charley K. Bates
Summary: Ginny runs into the Luna while sneaking back to the Gryffindor Tower one night. Femmeslash.


Ginny held her breath, pressing against the wall. She heard Filch breathing just around the corner and closed her eyes, praying he wouldn't come this far. The last thing she needed right now was to get into trouble for sneaking around the castle at night. The floorboards creaked slightly as Filch turned away grumbling, and Ginny slowly let out a sigh of relief. Gingerly, she crept closer toward the main corridor and peered around the corner to see Filch's figure retreating down the stairs to the 6th floor. She waited a few more moments until both were out of sight before she rushed from hiding place and immediately began pacing back and forth in front of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy's failures.

As soon as she'd done this three times, she rushed at the once-blank wall opposite the tapestry, yanking open the door to the Room of Requirement to reveal an enormous Quidditch pitch. She dashed past the field into the bleachers where her stuff was waiting and began shoving her things - gloves, Quidditch robes, wand, extra shoes unceremoniously back into her bag. Moments later she was at the door again, this time escaping back to the danger of the corridor.

Ginny began the crawl back to the Gryffindor tower. It was already 3 o'clock. She tried not to think about how she was going to have to wake up again in just 4 hours for her real Quidditch practice. It might not have been so bad, except that she had already been late to practice twice this week, and she knew Angelina would murder her if she overslept again. As she approached the Gryffindor Tower, she started to yawn, which changed quickly to a very loud cry of anger when she saw that the Fat Lady had vanished from her portrait.

Ginny stomped her foot, not bothering to hide her fit of temper in that particular moment (seeing as there was no one around to see her anyway), feeling all at once that she would very much like to either cry or hit someone (preferably Ron) very hard. She bit her lip thinking. It was no use waiting her in front of the portrait. There was always the risk that Filch would come prowling, and she had no idea when the Fat Lady was going to return. At this point, it would probably be safest to just head back to Room of Requirement and get in a few more hours of practice. Or she could ask the room to turn into a warm, fluffy bed...

"Shit!" Ginny had just turned to go, when the seam of her bag split, and the contents went tumbling out all over the floor. She was fairly certain this night could not get any worse.

Resigned, she groped around in the dark for a moment, pulling her wand and her bag from the mess.

"_Reparo_," she muttered and the bag repaired itself. She tugged at the bag gently. She would probably still need to get a new one - what she well made up for with her skills in hexing and jinxing people, she very much lacked in the area of household spells. In all likelihood, the bag would split a second time by breakfast this morning, and if she was lucky, would last at least until the afternoon, when it would probably give up on her entirely by dumping her Potions supplies all over Snape's spotless dungeon floor.

"_Lumos."_ Ginny peered through the darkness, feeling around for her things. She felt like a moron, crawling around in the dark like this, her fear of Filch mounting with each passing second. If he found her, there was no telling what might happen. Harry, Fred, and George were already banned from the team, and as certain as she was that Angelina would kill her if she was late to a third practice, she was even more certain that Angelina (and probably the rest of the Gryffindors) would be impossible to restrain if she managed to get herself kicked off the team as well for sneaking around at night, even if it was in pursuit of extra Quidditch practice.

She had just succeed in finding her left shoe, when a second wand light joined hers. Ginny jumped. A pale girl with blond hair appeared in front of her, holding out Ginny's other shoe. Ginny breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh, Luna it's you. I thought you must've been a professor at first. Thanks," she said, taking the shoe. Then she registered how odd Luna's sudden appearance was. "Err, what are you doing here so late?"

Luna smiled vaguely, helping Ginny gather her Quidditch robes together. "Oh I'm just out for a walk," she said, folding the robes and passing them over. "What are you doing?"

"Me? Oh, I just remembered that I left my things in the Room of Requirement," she said quickly. She liked Luna, but Ginny didn't want anyone to know that she was practicing Quidditch by night. She didn't like how insecure it made her seem. "Anyway, thanks Luna," she said, sighing as she folding the Quidditch robes over her arm and stood back upright.

Luna smiled back dreamily. "You're welcome," she said. "Don't worry about Quidditch so much, Ginny. You'll be fine."

Ginny furrowed her eyebrows.

"Who says I'm worried," she demanded, then stopped realizing just how much more insecure she had sounded. The lack of sleep must be getting to her.

"Oh no one, I can just tell," said Luna. Ginny stared at Luna for a moment when suddenly Luna surprised her by leaning forward and kissing her briefly. Luna withdrew just as quickly gazing back at Ginny's bemused expression with that same airy smile on her face. Ginny open and closed her mouth.

"Good night Ginny," said Luna. "Good luck at Quidditch practice today." And with that, she turned and floated off, leaving Ginny Weasley standing in front of the Fat Lady's empty portrait, staring after her in silence.


End file.
